CHAPTER 162: CHAPTER 162: THE DREAM MASTER

"Dream Master?" Carol repeated. Her voice didn’t rise. It just... flatlined. Like she’d heard something that sounded like magic but smelled like nonsense. "That sounds either incredibly powerful... or incredibly ridiculous."

Arthur didn’t answer right away. He pulled the rune from his coat — a sliver of crystal, no bigger than a coin, humming faint silver. It hovered above his palm, slow and steady, like a heartbeat made visible.

He set it down on the shelter floor. It didn’t touch the ground. Just... hung there.

Carol crouched beside it. Didn’t touch it. Just watched.

"Okay. Explain. How does this even work?" she asked.

"How does it work?" she asked.

"Simple idea." he said. "I mark key people - leaders, commanders, anyone whose choices matter - with a tiny rune. Then, this magical thing here," he tapped the crystal, "Sends them dreams. Not random ones. Specific ones. Vivid. Real. Like you’re actually there."

She blinked. "You mean... you make them dream about the future?"

"Not the future," he corrected. "A possible one. Built from data. From their own reports. Their decay rates. Their energy use. I mixed it with some things I saw in old Earth stories. Apocalypses. Dying worlds. Things that stick."

He looked up at her, eyes steady. "And then I broadcast it. Through this. To everyone marked. Think of it like a radio station, but instead of music, it plays nightmares."

Carol stared at the crystal. "You can do that? Just... plug into someone’s dreams?"

Arthur tilted his head. "Want a demo?"

She hesitated. "Is this tested? No side effects? No... brain damage?"

"No need to test," he said simply. "I’m confident."

"But—"

He held up a finger. Not to stop her. To say: I’ve already decided.

Carol exhaled through her nose. "Alright, but if you scramble my brain—"

"You’ll blast me into the nearest star, yes, I’m aware." Arthur moved behind her, his fingers already glowing with soft blue light. "This might tickle."

He drew a delicate rune at the base of her skull, the magical symbol settling into her skin like a temporary tattoo before fading from view.

Carol reached back, fingers finding nothing but smooth skin. "Won’t people notice these marks?"

"This is just for the demo. Visible so you can see what I’m doing. The actual runes will be completely undetectable."

She swallowed. "Okay. What happens next?"

"Now, you’ll need to sleep."

"How am I supposed to just fall asleep on command? I’m not exactly—"

Arthur’s finger was already pointing at her, a gentle smile playing at his lips. A soft blue light struck her before she could finish her protest, and Carol’s eyes rolled back as she collapsed. Arthur caught her with a cushioning charm, conjuring a comfortable bed beneath her just as she fell.

"Sweet dreams," he murmured, already beginning to control the crystal.

—

Carol’s consciousness stirred in darkness. Not the comforting dark of sleep, but something heavier, oppressive.

She stood in what her mind slowly recognized as a coastal town on Hala—one she’d visited years ago during her time with Starforce. The architecture was unmistakable, those elegant spirals and organic curves the Kree favored.

But everything was wrong.

The darkness wasn’t night.

It was smoke.

Thick. Greasy. Heavy enough to choke on.

Through the haze, she could make out what should have been Hala’s sun, reduced to a weak orange smudge barely visible through the pollution.

People moved around her. Slow. Hollow-eyed. Masks sealed tight. No one spoke. No one ran. They just walked — dragging their feet, shoulders slumped, as if the weight of the world had settled into their bones and refused to let go.

Children clung to adults. Too tired to cry. Too numb to ask why.

She walked forward, drawn by memory.

The beach.

She remembered it — purple sand, waves curling under twin moons, the scent of salt and seaweed thick in the air. A place where Carol had once sat for hours, watching the stars reflect off the water, wondering if anyone out there was looking back.

Now?

Nothing.

Just cracked earth. Endless. Bleached white in places, stained black in others.

No ocean.

No life.

Just silence.

She knew then.

This wasn’t a future.

This was the future.

If nothing changed.

The dream didn’t whisper. It screamed — every detail too real: the smell of burning plastic beneath the smoke, the dry rasp of a child’s breath through a failing filter, the way the dying sun pressed down like a hand on her chest.

She couldn’t take it.

Her power flared before she could stop it.

Golden light exploded from within — raw, furious, binary energy tearing through the illusion like paper.

The world shattered.

—

Arthur watched as Carol’s body jerked upright. Golden aura flickered around her — binary form threatening to ignite — then snapped back like a rubber band.

She gasped. Sat bolt upright. Hands shaking.

Arthur didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Just waited.

She blinked rapidly, staring at him like he’d just handed her a corpse.

"That..." she whispered, voice raw. "That was... real."

"It felt real," Arthur said quietly.

"Was that... Hala? In the future?"

"I don’t know what Hala will become," he admitted. "I built it from what we know. The numbers. The trends. The reports from their own scientists. Added a little fiction. Made it hurt."

She swallowed. "It wasn’t fiction. It felt... true."

"Good. That’s exactly what I was going for." Arthur picked up the control rune, which had dimmed during the transmission. "Now imagine hundreds of Kree across both factions experiencing that same vision simultaneously. The impact could be profound."

Carol’s expression shifted to uncertainty. "I’m still not sure about this. Isn’t this messing with their minds? Like I told you earlier, I don’t like manipulating people’s thoughts."

"I’m not messing with their minds," Arthur corrected patiently. "Just their dreams. There’s a difference. I won’t be controlling them or altering their thoughts. I’ll simply show them the future—one possible future."

"That’s just whitewashing it. We’re still manipulating people."

Arthur met her gaze steadily. "Maybe. But they’ll still have free will. They’ll see the consequences of their actions and make their own decisions. Think of it as prophetic visions—warnings they can choose to heed or ignore."

Carol remained hesitant, conflict clear in her expression.

"Carol," Arthur continued, his tone serious, "there’s no perfect solution here. Any action we take could be construed as manipulation. If we speak to them directly, we’re using persuasion. If we remove their weapons, we’re controlling their options. If we do nothing, we’re allowing deaths through inaction." He paused, letting that sink in. "At least this way, they maintain control. They see the consequences and choose their own path."

Carol closed her eyes. "And if they see these visions and still choose to continue fighting?"

"Then you can be happy knowing you did your best, and that the Kree apparently had a death wish." Arthur’s voice carried a hard edge. "You can finally sleep with a clear conscience. You tried to fix things, but they didn’t want fixing."

Carol was quiet for a long moment, weighing his words. Finally, she nodded slowly. "Alright. How do we choose who to mark?"

"I don’t know the key players well enough," Arthur admitted. "You understand how Kree society works. Gather me a list of influential people—those who have real say in what happens and also genuinely love their home planet."

"That will take some time to compile properly."

"We have time. Let’s start small and mark the people we already know first. This marking process is going to take considerable effort anyway, and you can refine the list as we go. The beauty of the dream network is that we can add to it gradually."

"Good thinking. I’ll start creating a preliminary list." Carol pulled up her wrist display, already beginning to scroll through data.

Arthur stood, brushing off his clothes. "And I’ll prepare the materials for the runes. Each one needs to be stable enough to last days, maybe weeks."

"Weeks? How long is this going to take?"

"As long as it takes," Arthur said simply. "Or until we have an answer. If the Kree even want to be saved, or if we’re just wasting our time."

Carol looked up from her display. "You know, when you first suggested becoming the Dream Master, I thought it would be more... dramatic. This sounds like a lot of careful, methodical work."

Arthur smiled slightly. "The best plans usually are. We plant the seeds tonight, tend them carefully, and see what grows." He paused at the shelter’s entrance, looking back at her. "Let’s see how the Kree like my dreams."